To the Secretariat of the International Socialist Bureau, Brussels

Published:First published in 1925, in the magazineKrasnaya Letopis, No. 1.

      Published according to the text in the magazine and checked against the typewritten French version.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1972,

      Moscow,Volume 9,

      pages142-145.Translated:The Late Abraham Fineberg and Julius KatzerTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Geneva, July 24, 1905

DearComrades,

Wereceived your letter of June 28 several days ago, with some interesting
documents (letters from Comrades Bebel and Plekhanov) enclosed, but being
extremely busy we were unable to reply at once.

1.As regards Comrade Plekhanov’s letter, we are obliged to make the following
   observations:

1)Comrade Plekhanov’s assertion that since the Second Congress of our Party
   (August 1903) we have differed only on the question of organisation is not in
   full keeping with the facts. The “Minority” at the Second
   Congress (headed by Comrades Axelrod, Vera Zasulich, and Martov) actually
   split the Party immediately after the Congress by declaring a boycott of the
   central bodies elected by the Congress and by setting up a secret
   “Minority” organisation, which was dissolved only in the autumn
   of 1904. Comrade Plekhanov himself, who sided with us at the Second Congress
   of the Party and at the Congress of the League of Russian Social- Democracy
   Abroad (October 1903), evidently held a some what different opinion
   concerning our differences when he publicly stated inIskra, No. 52
   (November 1903) that we must make skilful concessions to the
   “revisionists” (Plekhanov’s expression) in order to avoid a split
   in the Party.

2)The assertion that the Third Congress of the Party was convened “quite
   arbitrarily” does not correspond to the facts either. According to
   Party Rules, the Council is obliged to call a congress if so demanded by half
   of the committees. As you know from the resolutions of the Third Congress,
   which have been translated into French, the Council ignored the Party
   Rules. The Party committees and the “Bureau ofMajority Committees”[1]which they elected were morally and
formally obliged to convene the Congress, even against the will of the Council,
which did nothing to convene it.

3)You know from the selfsame resolutions of the Third Congress that it was not
   “something like half of the duly authorised organisations” that
   were represented at the Congress, but a considerable majority of the biggest
   committees.

4)It is true that there are comrades in our Party who are referred to in jest
   as the “Marsh”. Its members were continually changing sides
   during the controversies within our Party. The first of these turncoats was
   Plekhanov, who went over from the Majority to the Minority in November 1903,
   only to leave the Minority on May 29 of this year, when he resigned fromIskra’sEditorial Board. We do not approve of changing sides like
   that, but think we cannot be blamed if after much vacillation members of the
   “Marsh” are inclined to follow us. 5) In his letter to the Bureau
   (June 16, 1905) Comrade Plekhanov most inappropriately forgot to mention his
   letter of May 29, 1905, published inIskra(No. 101), a complete and
   exact translation of which we have already forwarded to you. 6) When he says
   that the other section in the Party is grouped aroundIskra, the
   Party’s former Central Organ, Comrade Plekhanov again forgot to add that the
   “Minority” Conference (May 1905) annulled the Rules drawn up at
   the Second Congress, and failed to set up a new Central Organ. We think that
   the International Socialist Bureau should have a complete translation of all
   resolutions of that conference. IfIskrarefuses to send them to
   the Bureau we are prepared to do so ourselves. 7) Comrade Plekhanov states
   that only the two remaining members of the Central Committee (the others had
   been arrested) declared them selves in favour of convening the Third
   Congress.

ComradePlekhanov’s letter is dated June 16, 1905. The next day, June 17, No. 4
ofProletary, the Central Organ of the Party, which had been set up by
the Third Congress, published the following statement: “After reading the
Central Committee’s Open Letter to Comrade Plekhanov, Chairman of the Party
Council, and being in full agreement with the Central Committee, we consider it
necessary— for reasons which comrades acquainted with the state of affairs
in the Party will understand—publicly to declareour solidarity with the Central Committee.” Signed (pseudonyms): Ma, Bern,
Vladimir, Innokenty, Andrei, Voron. We may inform you in confidence that
these pseudonyms belong to the arrested members of the Central
Committee.[2]Consequently, as soon as the members of the
    Central Commit tee learned of the conflict between the Central Committee and
    Comrade Plekhanov (and, therefore, the Council as well) regarding the
    convocation of the Congress, most of them at once declared in favour of the
    Central Committee and against Comrade Plekhanov. We earnestly request the
    International Secretariat to inform us whether Comrade Plekhanov deemed it
    necessary to acquaint the Bureau with this important statement by the
    arrested members of the Central Committee, which completely refutes the
    assertions contained in Comrade Plekhanov’s letter of June 16. 8)
    Comrade. Plekhanov is mistaken in saying that both groups asked him to go on
    representing the Party in the International Bureau. To date the Central
    Committee of our Party has not made any such request. As we informed you a
    few days ago, this question has not yet been finally decided, although it
    stands on the order of the day. 9) Comrade Plekhanov thinks that it is not
    difficult for him to be impartial in the question of our differences. After
    what has been set forth above, however, we believe that he finds it quite
    difficult, and at the present moment, at any rate, next to
    impossible.[3]

II.I pass on to Comrade Bebel’s proposal on the subject of our affairs.

HereI must make the following observations: 1)1am only one
of the members of the Central Committee and the responsible editor ofProletary, the Party’s Central Organ. I can act for the whole of the
Central Committee only in regard to our affairs abroad and certain other matters
specially entrusted to me. In any case, all my decisions may be an nulled by a
general meeting of the Central Committee. There fore, I cannot decide on the
question of the Bureau’s intervention in the affairs of our Party. However, I
immediately forwarded your letter, as well as the letters of Comrades Bebel and
Plekhanov, to Russia, to all the members of the Central Committee. 2) In order
to speed up the Central Committee’s reply it would be very useful to obtain
certain necessary explanations from the Bureau: a) should the term"intervention” be taken to mean only conciliatory mediation, and
advice having merely moral, and not binding, force; b) or does the Bureau have
in view a binding ruling by a court of arbitration; c) does the Bureau’s
Executive Committee propose to submit our differences to the general meeting of
the International Socialist Bureau for final decision, without right of appeal?
3) On my part I consider it my duty to inform the Bureau that shortly before the
Third Congress Comrade Bebel made a similar proposal to me and to those who
share my views offering his services or the services of the entire Executive
Committee of the German Party (Parteivorstand), as arbitrator in the
dispute between the Majority and the Minority in our Party.

Ireplied that the Party Congress would take place soon and that I personally
could not decide for the Party or in its name.

TheBureau of Majority Committees rejected Bebel’s offer. The Third Congress
passed no decision on this offer, and thereby tacitly endorsed the reply given
by the Bureau of Majority Committees. 4) Since the International Bureau
considers it proper to obtain its information from “certain German
newspapers”, I am compelled to state that nearly all German socialist
papers, especiallyDie Neue ZeitandLeipziger
Volkszeitung,[4]are entirely on the side of the
“Minority”, and present our affairs in a very one-sided and
inaccurate way. Kautsky, for instance, also calls himself impartial, and yet, in
actual fact, he went so far as to refuse to publish in theNeue Zeita
refutation of an article by Rosa Luxemburg, in which she defended disruption in
the Party.[5]InLeipziger VolkszeitangKautsky even urged
that the German pamphlet with the translation of the resolutions of the Third
Congress should not be circulated!! After this it is easy to understand why many
comrades in Russia are inclined to regard the German Social-Democratic Party as
partial and extremely prejudiced in the question of the split in the ranks of
Russian Social-Democracy.

Accept,dear comrades, our fraternal greeting.

VI. Ulyanov (N. Lenin)

[1]Bureau of Majority Committees—the Bolsheviks’
organisational centre, was formed on Lenin’s initiative to prepare for
the R.S.D.L.P.’s Third Congress. It was elected at the close of 1904 at three
regional conferences—the Southern, the Caucasian, and
the Northern.

[2]The conciliator members of the Central Committee who were arrested at its
session on February 9 (22), 1905 in Moscow were:Ma—V. A. Noskov;Bem—M. A. Silvin;Vladimir—L. Y. Karpov;Innokenty—I. F. Dubrovinsky;Andrei—A. A. Kvyatkovsky;Voron—L. Y. Galperin.

[3]On May 7 (20), 1905 the Central Committee of the
R.S.D.L.P. appointed Plekhanov its representative in the International Socialist
Bureau (the executive body of the Second International), on the condition that
he recognise the decisions of the R.S.D.L.P.’s Third Congress as
binding. Plekhanov did not accept this condition, upon which his appointment
was cancelled. In October 1905 the Central Committee appointed Lenin its
representative in the International Socialist Bureau. Regarding the R.S.D.L.P.’s
representation in the Bureau see also this volume, pp. 332-34.

[4]TheLeipsiger Volkszeitung—organof the Left
wing of German
 Social-Democracy, was founded in 1894.

[5]"Lenin is referring to the article by Rosa LuxemburgOrganisantionsfragen der Russischen Sozialdemokratie, written by her at
the request of the Mensheviks, and published in July 1904 in the MenshevikIskraand inDie Neue Zeit. A refutal of this article was
contained inOne Step Forward, Two Steps Back. Reply by N. Lenin to Rosa
Luxemburg(see present edition, Vol. 7, pp. 474-85) which was sent toDie Neue Zeit. Kautsky, who supported the Mensheviks, refused to
publish the reply.